Well the fact is that they can’t so long as Apple is manipulating their platform but they can encourage people to leave the Apple platform which is far more devastating to Apple than losing music subscribers
Whether they have the numbers or not this war was inevitable from the moment Apple announced their music subscription service. Ultimately it's going to come down to who does it better and by better, I mean which one helps people find new songs the best. But I will say one thing, I have had the iPhone since the very first model and I have never been closer to abandoning IOS because its price to value ratio is quickly becoming unfavorable. Anything that tips it further is not good for Apple especially now that they are no longer disclosing iPhone sales numbers, an indicator that they are declining.